After resigning as superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department in March, Richard Pennington said he would never again enter municipal law enforcement unless he was made an offer he could not refuse. Apparently, the city of Atlanta did just that in June when it appointed Pennington to a post that will make him the nationís third highest-paid chief.

In addition to his $157,000 annual salary, Pennington is expected to receive health and insurance benefits, a $34,670 payment to his pension fund, a one-time $16,983 relocation fee, and use of a car and cell phone. All of which adds up to $226,000 his first year, according to a report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

His ambition was to be a ďcopís cop,Ē and New York Cityís first black police commissioner, Benjamin Ward, who died this month, was hailed by city officials as one of the finest public servants the NYPD ever produced.

Ward, 75, was taken unconscious to New York Hospital Medical Center the night of June 10. Although no official cause of death was given, he was a longtime sufferer of chronic asthma...

Keeping officers from jumping to better paying positions with other federal agencies and broadening his departmentís jurisdiction around the District of Columbia are the top items on the agenda for Terrance W. Gainer, who assumed command of the U.S. Capitol Police in early June.

The Capitol Police force is charged with protecting members of Congress and their family members, and investigating crimes occurring within a jurisdiction that comprises the Capitol, House and Senate office buildings and surrounding streets. Its authority is limited within the city ó something Gainer, a former second-in-command of the Metropolitan Police Department, wants to see changed...